


The Crooked Kind

by keraunoscopia



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 21:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19035580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keraunoscopia/pseuds/keraunoscopia
Summary: It is number six, or maybe seven; he lost count about half an hour ago and has no desire to figure it out. The scalding burn of cheap whiskey coats his throat, but somehow, all he can taste is the sorrow, the anguish he’s trying to drown





	The Crooked Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Forcing myself to write things. Save me from Bar Prep.

Sweat beads on the glass, drips down the side before hitting lacquered bar top, and Adam’s hand stops the trickle as he tips the shot down his throat. It is number six, or maybe seven; he lost count about half an hour ago and has no desire to figure it out. The scalding burn of cheap whiskey coats his throat, but somehow, all he can taste is the sorrow, the anguish he’s trying to drown. He looks up from the glass as he sets it back down on the counter, eyes catching the calendar hanging on the wall, just next to the cheap tequila. Today is March tenth, and it’s a day that shouldn’t mean much to anyone, but it’s seared into Adam’s vision like he’s looked at the sun too long. 

He motions to his glass as Stella catches his eye, and she raises an eyebrow but says nothing as she pours more liquid into his glass. It’s not enough, he thinks, as he downs it in one go, it never feels like enough. Alcohol can only do so much to his memory, can only dull the ache for so long, and it’s still there, always present, lingering in his peripheral vision, a specter that won’t fully fade away. 

A heavy hand settles on his shoulder and if he had been more alert in that moment, his defenses may have raised, his hand might have gone to his gun, he might have jumped. Instead he just turns slowly, movements less deliberate, and he registers the face beside him. Concerned, brows knitted together, the deeply etched lines in his forehead. Adam knows that face, knows this person, knows that he should have gone somewhere else to drink today. 

“Come on Ruz, I think it’s time to go,” Jay speaks softly, doesn’t want to make a scene, and Adam scans the bartenders, wondering which one of them was the traitor who ratted him out, which one made the phone call, because Jay is clearly here for one purpose, to get him off this stool and out of this bar, maybe home, or somewhere else. 

“No,” Adam shakes his head, cringes at the tone of his voice, that sort of uncontrolled slur, “no I’m fine, we’re having a good time,” he gestures wildly to the other patrons, and realizes just a little too late that his voice is a little too loud for the setting. He expects Jay’s jaw to lock, expects his eyes to narrow into that disdainful sort of look he gets when he has to play the babysitter. Instead, Adam’s stomach flips, because it’s still concern, compassion in his eyes, not annoyance. 

With the dizzying overtone of liquor, Adam’s mind can’t help but wander, wonder if Jay knows exactly what sort of affect those slate blue eyes, freckled cheeks have on Adam’s reserve. He wonders if Jay knows the lengths he would go, how quickly he would acquiesce. When Jay looks at him, he feels like a tree, strong, but always yielding to the wind. 

“I know you’re fine, but we’re going to go anyway,” Jay responds, and his voice is still soft, but has that gravely sort of authority to it, a gravitational pull that Adam’s helpless to resist, and he shudders as Jay’s hand tightens on his shoulder, guides him off the stool and to his feet. He knows he should be embarrassed, knows that if he were more lucid at this moment, he’d likely be pink cheeked for reasons other than the lingering warmth of his blood alcohol content, but Jay doesn’t poke fun, says nothing more as he pulls Adam’s arm around his shoulders, wraps his own around Adam’s waist. In this position, Adam can smell the distinctive note of Jay’s cologne, whatever product he uses to keep his hair so neatly styled, clean, and crisp and so incredibly familiar. 

They stumble out onto the street silently, and Adam leans more heavily against Jay, not because he needs to, not because he can’t keep himself steady on his feet, although that point might be debated, but because he can get away with it now, can lean in as close as he wants without question, can revel in the warmth of Jay’s body, the heat where their sides are touching. 

But Adam looks up and realizes it’s snowing. Not enough to stick, just a little bit too warm and each tiny flake dissolves into nothingness as it floats to the ground, and suddenly it’s just too much, overwhelming and painful and absolutely crippling, and Adam sinks to his knees, there on the sidewalk, hand slipping from Jay’s shoulders even as Jay struggles to keep him standing. 

He doesn’t cry because he can’t. Because he’s spent twenty nine years of his life mourning this, because all the tears he had to cry over her have long been used up, but it doesn’t stop the ache in his chest, doesn’t stop him from feeling like two hands are prying his rib cage apart at the seam. 

“Adam,” Jay squats down in concern as Adam just sits himself down, knees to his chest, elbows resting on his knees as he tries to steady his breath, tries to calm the erratic beating of his heart. “Adam what’s wrong?” Jay repeats. And it’s not the alcohol, he and Jay both know that, his gaze is too clear, body too stiff for it to be the threat of unconsciousness.

“I just can’t,” Adam bites out between breaths, because he doesn’t know how to talk about this, doesn’t know how to say it. Especially not to someone like Jay, for a million reasons. Because Jay’s life has been steeped in tragedy, because if anyone knows loss, it’s Jay, because Adam loves him with everything he has, even if he can’t admit it. 

“Okay,” Jay nods, “then let’s sit.” He says nothing else, just shifts back on the sidewalk until his back hits the brick wall of the building, and Adam glances over, chest still heaving, and watches tiny flecks of white settle in Jay’s hair. The sky has that sort of ethereal purple hue, the lightness that only comes with midnight flurries, and Adam doesn’t know what to feel, doesn’t know how to quiet the dissonant chorus in his brain, but he moves too, sits next to Jay on the sidewalk, lets tiny snowflakes melt on his skin, the soft fabric of well worn clothes. 

“It’s so…” Adam struggles after a while, the silence creating an unintended vacuum, and he feels compelled to explain, to justify this behavior, but he’s not sure what’s worse, Jay coming to his own conclusions or admitting himself that he’s this weak, this affected by something that happened so long ago. 

Jay doesn’t push though, doesn’t ask Adam to continue. Instead, he just moves his hand to Adam’s, takes it softly without a word. It’s a simple gesture, or it could be, but to Adam, it feels like confirmation, support and safety and encouragement all with one little touch. 

“It’s so stupid,” Adam finally admits, voice cracks painfully as he speaks, but Jay’s hand just tightens ever so slightly, and he looks up at the lavender sky, the pin prick snowflakes. “It’s the day my mom left.” 

Jay’s quiet for a while, keeps Adam’s hand in his, and for a moment, Adam thinks he’s said too much, that Jay is judging him, critical and harsh, because Jay lost his mother to cancer, and Voight lost his wife to cancer, and Atwater practically raised his siblings, because Lindsey’s mom was worse than all of that, he’s got no room to complain, no room to feel so hollow. 

“Why is that stupid?” Jay finally asks, and that takes Adam by surprise, a kind of sobering note. 

“Because she’s not dead, she’s still not. And she’s not a drug addict or a criminal,” Adam shrugs, dropping his head to his knees, because even talking about it feels like ice spreading through his chest, settling in his stomach. 

“So why are you upset about it?” Jay prods softly. It isn’t an accusation, isn’t even doubt, just genuine curiosity, concern. Jay looks over at him with such gentle affection that for a moment, Adam feels paralyzed, feels like he should run, close up this wounded part of him that he can’t quite ever get to heal with staples or stitches and move on like nothing’s happened. This feels like a precipice, like the edge of a cliff, like a moment he’s sure he can’t go back from if he takes one more step forward. 

His voice wavers as he speaks, so soft that Jay has to strain to hear him over the sound of a lone car passing on the otherwise empty street. “Because she left me, because I never saw her again,” his voice breaks, and he can feel the hot sting of tears threatening to spill, “because when I was little all I could think was what kind of mother leaves her kids, but now that I’m older all I can think is what was so bad about me, what was so horrible about having me as a kid that she decided to head through that door and never come back?” 

Jay doesn’t have anything to say to that, doesn’t know which combination of words could possibly be a salve for this thirty year old wound, so instead, he just shifts a little closer, leans his head against Adam’s shoulder, and holds his hand a little tighter. “I don’t know if it’ll help,” Jay speaks slowly, eyes fluttering closed against a gust of wind, a bitter swirl of tiny flakes in the midnight stillness of Chicago, “but I won’t leave.”


End file.
